Musical law enforcers; Angry tweeting; Unconventional Dems

It’s time for one of The Auditor’s favorite games: Musical law enforcers.

In the latest installment, Gov. Chris Christie has decided not to reappoint Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin to the post he has held since July 2005. Valentin, a 44-year-old Democrat, worked for Christie in the U.S. Attorney’s Office until tapped by then-Gov. Richard Codey as an antidote to the upheaval in the Monmouth prosecutor’s office in 2005.

But Valentin’s shared history with Christie didn’t mean Christie was looking to give him a second five-year term.

The Auditor is told Valentin was never one of Christie’s favorites in the federal prosecutor’s office.

In addition, Monmouth is a key Republican county that played a big role in the new governor’s victory in last year’s election. Christie has a lot of other names being submitted for his consideration, and Valentin just doesn’t hold enough political chits in the county that’s the home of Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Christie’s close advisor, Republican state Sen. Joe Kyrillos.

Though Valentin’s impending departure is certain, it has not yet been announced. In advance of formal notification, Valentin has been trying to position himself for a new gig: Essex County prosecutor.

The top law enforcement job in the busiest prosecutor’s office in the state remains unfilled and Valentin has been working the back channels to land it.

But officials inside the discussions say Christie has said point blank that Valentin is out in Monmouth — and out of the running in Essex.

Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage, a Democrat, has let everyone he can know he’s not happy with his party’s leadership in the Legislature. In comments to the media and on Twitter, he’s raked them over the coals for passing a 2 percent property tax cap without first passing measures to help towns control costs.

It got the attention of Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who rang up Bollwage in July to ask about his comment that Christie is the only Trenton politician with a backbone. The Auditor is told the talk ended with a few choice words.

“The Senate president called me, and suffice it to say it was an unpleasant conversation,” Bollwage said.

“Did I have an argument with him? Yeah, over the summer. I have a lot of arguments with people,” Sweeney said.

Meanwhile, Bollwage has continued his criticism of Democratic leaders, tweeting a few weeks ago that they were wasting time holding hearings on the state’s loss of $400 million in federal education aid while Christie’s cost-cutting “tool kit” measures languish.

“What does the Legislature hope (to) accomplish by holding hearings on lost 400 (million),” Bollwage tweeted. “Embarrass (the governor) of course but will it do anything (to) help taxpayer(rs?).”

Sweeney says he’s not a-twitter over Bollwage’s tweets.

“I don’t pay attention to tweets,” he said. “Anybody who tweets, to be honest with you, I don’t pay attention to them.”

Unconventional Democrats

State Democrats are skipping their annual convention in Atlantic City this year. Instead, the Democratic State Committee has arranged a one-day picnic today in Sayreville — hometown of the party’s new chairman, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (R-Sayreville). “I want to try approaching this in a different way,” he said.

Wisniewski noted that September is packed with committee hearings and said the decision to skip a convention had nothing to do with a downturn in fundraising the party has seen since Gov. Jon Corzine pulled out of the political scene.

But having Christie in office may give Democrats a reason to avoid another Atlantic City convention. In 2006, as U.S. Attorney, Christie dropped a subpoena on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez just as Democrats were converging on Atlantic City. In 2007, the feds, led by Christie, busted 11 public officials on corruption charges — mostly Democrats — on the first day of the convention.

They gave at the office

Newark’s Poopgate saga continued with Mayor Cory Booker denying last week’s Auditor report that someone had left an unpleasant mess on his home doorstep. Booker said the pile was actually left outside the mayor’s office door.